history

Retelling history, 140 characters at a time

Spoiler alert: The Cuban Missile Crisis ended without the United States and the Soviet Union launching even a single nuclear weapon, and the Allies won World War II.

You're no doubt well aware of those ultimate outcomes, but what if you don't remember, or never knew, the myriad individual moments, big and small, that led to those famous conclusions? There are plenty of thick history books you could pick up, but maybe you're someone who wants a more dramatic sense of what happened -- even, perhaps, to feel like you're right in the thick of the drama.

To be sure, there's no time machine that can take you back to London during The Blitz, or to the White House Situation Room as JFK stood firm against belligerent military leaders wanting to engage the Soviets over surreptitiously putting nukes in Cuba. But these days, in little 140-character snippets, many of those moments are being played out for the whole world to see. And if you close your eyes, you can almost imagine you're there. … Read more

History's first OMG directed at Winston Churchill?

Today's OMG isn't your grandpa's digital shorthand, but it turns out it is old enough to be your great-grandpa's abbreviated analog slang.

Letters of Note dug up a letter penned by John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher of Kilverstone and Admiral of the Fleet in the British Royal Navy (OMG! what a title) to then Minister of Munitions Winston Churchill in 1917 that contains a very early use of the acronym.

In a letter relating a few good rips of the Germans and decrying the current naval situation of the day, Lord Fisher … Read more

Your Web browsing history is totally unique, like fingerprints

Browser sniffing has had its rogue moments, like when the Web site YouPorn was caught checking whether visitors had been to other porn sites. It turned out that YouPorn was just the top of a list of 46 Web sites that were sniffing users' browser history, according to researchers at the University of California at San Diego.

But in a new study from the French public research institute Inria, ( PDF) researchers themselves did the browser sniffing and discovered that most users have a completely distinctive history when it comes to Web sites they regularly visit. Their results show that users' … Read more

Twitter to release tool that exports users' tweet history

Twitter is developing a new tool that will let users export their whole tweet history -- everything from smart observations to those embarrassing tweets that people may not want to remember.

"We're working on a tool to let users export all of their tweets," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in a meeting with The New York Times yesterday. "You'll be able to download a file of them."

As of now, users can only search back through the last few thousand posts. And even though third-party sites and apps let users backup their tweets, they … Read more

Add a locked Vault to your phone

NQ Mobile Vault is the simplest application I've seen for keeping text messages, call history, contacts, photos, and videos private on your mobile device. Celebrities, pay attention.

Basically, Vault creates an encrypted, password-protected space on your device, in which you can store photos, videos, text messages, and call history. It's easy to move items into and out of the space, and you can even permanently delete them, if you'd like.

Once you create your password, there are a few ways to start using Vault. First, within the app, you can pull up all of your messages and … Read more

Stop Google Talk from saving chat logs

If you're looking for one less thing to clutter up your Gmail space, GTalk can be one of your bigger offenders if you're using it to communicate often with friends or colleagues. Just taking a look at my own personal Gmail account, I'm kind of shocked how many threads there are for conversations I've had in the past year. On my work account I like to keep logs in case I need to reference instructions, facts, or quotes from people I've talked to. However, on my personal account I don't need to keep track … Read more

How to view and clear browsing history on Chrome for mobile

The Chrome for mobile release has been well-received by iOS and Android users alike, though for Android, Chrome is only available on devices with Android 4.0 and up, like the new Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. As with most mobile and desktop browsers, Chrome allows you to delete your browsing history from within its settings. You can also view your browsing history, but it's not a feature you can access from the menu. Here's how to view and clear your browsing history in Chrome for mobile.

Chrome for Android To view browsing history in … Read more

The Android era: From G1 to Jelly Bean

Google has come a long way since the early days when it struggled to convince the world that its friendly green extraterrestrial could make applesauce of the revolutionary iPhone.

In truth, Google's first Android phone, the HTC-made T-Mobile G1, wasn't much to look at when it debuted in October 2008, with its trough for a keyboard and its bizarrely jutting chin. HTC was hardly a known brand, and we weren't even sure if we were getting a single Google Phone or an entire operating system. Yet the humble G1, with its ugly design and few apps, kicked off an Android avalanche just the same.

Fast-forward to 2012, when the now-mature Android operating system is neck and neck with the iPhone around the globe. Android is everywhere.… Read more

5 years in: The evolution of the iPhone OS

On the fifth anniversary for the iPhone and as we draw closer to the release of iOS 6 this fall (read our First Take from WWDC here), I can't help but think of how far Apple's iOS has come since the day the first iPhone was unveiled.

If you remember, that first iPhone was announced by Steve Jobs and Apple on January 9, 2007, and was more about the touch-screen interface than any extras, but it wasn't until June of that year the iPhone was released to the public. That first iOS wasn't even called iOS (… Read more